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Perspective and commentary by Marshall Breeding

A merger of in the international library automation business: DS joins Axiell

The consolidation of the library automation business continues abroad as well as among the companies familiar to those of us in North America. In recent news, DS, one of the major companies involved in the United Kingdom has been acquired by Axiell Group, a company that develops library automation in for Nordic countries.

Civica acquired by private equity firm 3i

In another major transition, Civica a UK-based company that offers the Spydus library automation system and a number of IT products for local governments, is in the process of being acquired by 3i, a major private equity firm. Prior to this acquisition, Civica was a publicly traded company on the AIM exchange. Spydus, formerly Urica, is one of the dominant library automation systems in Australia, has a large portion of the libraries in Taiwan, has a growing portion of libraries in the United Kingdom, and has a presence in many other geographic sectors.

I have written an article on the transition of Civica and the background of Civica and its Spydus automation that will appear in the June 2008 issue of Smart Libraries Newsletter published by ALA TechSource.